


Maybe

by magicalxn



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Other, POV Second Person, Reader Is Frisk, Reader-Insert, Romance, Spoilers, juuuust wanted to write some real sad stuff ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 19:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5176346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalxn/pseuds/magicalxn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't help but feel like you've been here before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe

You shivered as you stepped forth from the warmth of the ruins, and not only because you’d just plunged into a foot of snow. You turned around just to catch a glimpse of those large purple doors shutting behind you, and you didn’t need to try to pull one open to know that they were locked. Knowing that Toriel was still in there, alone and confused after your battle, made you wonder if you made the right choice. Though her home was small, it was warm and bright, a speck of light in the otherwise dull violent ruins. If you had stayed there, you could’ve had whatever you wanted. A bed, good food, an education…

But you knew there was something more for you beyond those doors. As soon as you’d stepped into her home, you had given a glance to the steps leading into the basement and you’d felt some sort of magnetic pull, as if that was where you needed to be. She had chided you for it and told you that there was nothing down there for you, but when you insisted, you found that eventually she couldn’t keep the exit to the ruins from you, and you had pushed forward into the snowy forest you were in now.

You shivered again. You almost felt like somebody was watching you…you carefully picked past a snow-covered bush and glanced into the wide expanse of trees. You couldn’t put your finger on why, but something about this place was familiar to you. Everything had been familiar to you so far, in fact, but nothing so familiar as this place. The snowflakes falling gently down and the sound of the wind howling through the trees made the place feel like a second home, even more like a home than the warmth of the bed Toriel had given to you when you’d been in her home.

You took a few more tentative steps forward, finding a worn path through the snow. It was making you uneasy, that feeling of being watched combined with the inexplicable fact that you felt like you’d been in this place before and that you’d loved it, even though you weren’t sure you had ever been there before. Your breath billowed out in little white puffs, and you hugged your shoulders to try and keep warm. Even with a sweater on, the cold still chilled you to the bone.

You glanced down at the path in front of you. A large stick had been laid across it. Instinctively, you reached down to grab it, but you paused as your fingers neared the bark. You couldn’t explain why, but something was telling you that the branch was going to be too heavy to pick up and that you should leave it alone. Hesitantly, you retracted your arm and stared at the stick for a few moments. For some reason, a distant memory of a loud snapping sound came to mind.

Fearing a bit for your sanity, you decided it was best to simply forget about it and move on. You straightened up to your full height and carefully stepped over it, before advancing on, wrapping your arms around yourself again to keep warm.

Suddenly, a loud snap echoed through the trees.

You whirled around. The stick was smashed into little bits and pieces, like it was nothing. You felt your heart leap into your throat; you were getting ridiculously dangerous vibes from the situation, so instead of doubling back to inspect it, you hugged your arms around yourself tighter and continued on, hoping you might find somewhere up ahead that was friendly and bustling with a lot of monsters. Instinctively, you reached into your pocket and closed your fingers around the handle of a toy knife.

The thing was made of plastic and you knew it wouldn’t be able to do damage to anything, but it still gave you comfort grabbing onto it, knowing you could at least try to defend yourself if the need arose. However, you doubted you could even put a scratch on any of these monsters with it, especially not if the one that had so effortlessly broken that giant stick was the one following you now.

You heard the crunch of snow a few paces behind you, as if someone were following you, too close for comfort. Again, you spun around as fast as you could, brandishing the plastic toy as if it were a sword. Out of the corner of your eye, you thought you saw a shadow slip into the cover of the trees, and you felt your heart pounding in your ears. The image of a wide grin came to you – but shadows couldn’t grin. There was no way you could’ve seen one, but it was so distinctive, so characteristic of something that seemed to be just out of reach and you figured it was another strange, faulty, not-all-the-way-there memory that you seemed to recall after being in this place.

Your hand trembled and for a split second, you couldn’t help but wish you had a real knife.

Horror washed over you as you just realized exactly what it was you had wished; no, you couldn’t hurt a fly, you wouldn’t hurt a fly, no matter how much that fly wanted you dead you couldn’t fight back against it, not even if it meant death between it and you. You hastily stuffed the toy knife back into your pocket, feeling a little sick to your stomach at the mere sight of your fingers curled around its plastic handle in a white knuckle grip. It was far too easy to picture the dull, gray-painted blade spattered with blood.

You shuffled further into the snow, the little white clouds billowing from your mouth and nose coming in quick, short bursts as your breathing quickened. You wanted out of the situation fast and you briefly considered running back to Toriel’s door, pounding on it and begging her to take you back in if only to save you from whatever it was that was following you. But there was still some sort of magnetic pull you couldn’t ignore, dragging you forward. Squinting through the falling flakes, you could see some kind of structure up ahead. A gate, built with worn brown wood, though it seemed like whoever had built it had neglected to craft it well, given the bars were so wide, you could’ve fit three of you in the gap.

You brought your hand to your mouth, stifling a chuckle. Even in the face of some unknown evil, you couldn’t help but laugh at that. It brought you comfort, if only for a brief moment, to know that something as silly and nonsensical as that gate existed. For some reason, you got the impression that the builder was like that, too. You stopped a few feet in front of it, cocking your head to one side as you observed it. Apart from its obvious functional defects, it was a well-crafted little gate. Someone must’ve put a lot of work into it.

You heard the crunch of snow behind you: a footstep. Then another. And another.

Your limbs seemed to freeze but tremble at the same time, your heart rose and sank, it ceased and pounded furiously all at the same time. Your only response was to steel yourself by closing your eyes and gripping the handle of the plastic knife in your pocket as tight as you could. You had a bad feeling, but you didn’t know why. You wondered if it was because you were going to die. You didn’t really want to die, not when you knew you had such a big journey ahead of you. You were determined to see it through to its end, and if that meant fighting the monster that had just taken another step towards you - and God, they had to be so close to you now, the sound of the snow under their feet was loud – then so be it.

You swore you could feel something against your neck, weighing down on it, like it was the monster’s heavy breath. You felt something crawling down your back. The situation terrified you and enticed you at the same time, for even in all of your fear for what was going to happen next, you still had the same sense of déjà vu you’d had before, still felt the same magnetic pull tugging you along, though now it seemed to be tugging you to whatever was behind you. You gripped the plastic knife until your knuckles began to ache, having nothing to do, nothing to say, but listen to the footsteps stop right behind you.

“Human.”

The voice scared you more than anything has ever scared you before and your grip tightens even further on the knife, more than you thought was even possible. You gulp, a lump rising in your throat as you imagine what the monster behind you looked like. Images of an evil aura and an intimidating stature danced on your eyelids. But you were frozen in place. You couldn’t move, couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even bring yourself to breathe in its presence.

“Don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”

Despite your fear, the monster’s simple statement seemed to awaken something within you. Your eyes widened, and more images flashed by: the wide grin, a homely pub, a candlelit dinner table accompanied by the sound of rain…a golden hall, the glint of metal, a blue glow, a graveyard of bones…memories seemed to come flooding back to you, nonsensical but there nonetheless, and thought you didn’t know where they came from, you felt both comforted and appalled by them.

You whirled around, whipping out the knife and brandishing it at the monster in front of you.

Your eyes met its eyes. Black, soulless, so bleak they made your heart feel like it was breaking in two, like you could’ve died right there. The knife slipped from your grip and landed with a soft _plop_ in the snow and your hand fell to your side. Tears sprang to your eyes, but you didn’t know why, not until light danced within the depths of the monsters eyes and two white pinpricks swam into focus in their depths, and it was as if a dam had been broken, allowing memories – memories that you thought were yours, but perhaps also weren’t – to flood into your mind.

You could remember it clearly now. The terrible puns, laughing with him, him asking you to pay for dinner only to brush it off as a joke, stacking hot dogs on top of your head until your sides ached with laughter that you couldn’t hold still anymore, and the two of you laughed even harder as they fell to the ground, following him through the rain to the doors of the restaurant, his face growing dark as he very flatly threatened your life…

The memories morphed into ones that you weren’t entirely sure were yours, but they were there anyhow.

His uncomfortable grin, the sideways glances at you as you blew past him, his warning to you, then nothing, not until you stepped into that golden hall and your memories of him were brighter than any others. You felt as if you were reliving them, you could see the details so clearly, of the sweat beading on his brow and the faint glow of his left eye, the detail of his fur parka down to the grin he wore as a mask. You remember dying, again and again and again, of falling to bones piercing your body, to being blasted into dust, to finally putting down the knife and walking into his arms, only to be slain; you remembered the pain of it all, of how much it hurt to be killed until you couldn’t even remember how many times you had died.

But none of it hurt more nor even did it compare, to the hurt you now felt when you remembered seeing the look in his eyes as your blade finally connected with him, slicing him in two, as you remembered the red gushing out of him and onto you, whether it was blood or ketchup or something else, you remembered it all.

You remembered everything and now the tears were rolling down your face in rivulets and your hands were grasping at nothing. He looked as if he were going to say something to you, but stopped, his eyes widening even though they shouldn’t have been able to because his face was made of bone, and for a second, you thought you could see recognition flash in his eyes. Did he remember you too? Did he remember everything you did? Did he remember dying?

You fell to your knees in the snow. You didn’t care about how the cold stung you, about how much the hard ground hurt as you likely scraped up your skin. None of it mattered to you as you leaned forward, grabbing at anything you could. Your fingers found purchase in the skeleton’s jacket and you brought him to you. He stumbled forward, almost falling, before you wrapped your arms around him, burying your face into the warm wool of his sweater. His smell was familiar and it made you cry harder. You could tell he was confused, with the way he froze up as you touched him. You didn’t know if he remembered, and you didn’t know if you wanted him to, because you did. You remembered everything, even if you had never been there before and hadn’t met him, something within you still had these memories of him – of everything.

You gave a pitiful murmur of “Sans,” into his sweater.

His response was instantaneous. You could feel him tense at the name, before his arms wrapped around you, gently and slowly. You still didn’t know if he remembered you, but you figured he had to know something. If he had just been accosted by some human he had never seen and then had been called by his name, you knew it would’ve freaked him out…or would it have? He didn’t offer you any hints, ever the calm and cool type. Even when you were laughing with him, even when you were trying to kill him, he remained calm.

His grip tightened around you slightly as he muttered back to you, “Kid,” and you felt a sob rise in your throat, your shoulders shaking.

Words began to tumble out of you, almost faster than you could register. “Sans, Sans, Sans,” you whimpered his name again and again, as if it were a prayer. “Sans, I’m so sorry. Sans, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to, oh _God_ – I’m so sorry and _Sans_ , _please_ , forgive me, oh my God –“ You were trembling furiously in his arms and you didn’t know if he could understand you through your choked sobs, but he quickly tried patting your back, anything to get you to stop your quivering and blubbering.

“Heheh, kid, I – uh, don’t really get what I’m supposed to…forgive ya for, exactly…” The sound of his voice made your heart ache. Somehow you knew he was lying through his teeth. Maybe it was the way his voice seemed to catch, if only slightly, at the end of his words; or the way his bony fingers seemed to curl into your skin slightly as he talked. Regardless, you knew now, he remembered, if only a little bit.

“Do you remember me?”

You finally lifted your face from his sweater to stare up at him. His expression was sheepish, but his cheekbones were dusted with the slightest bit of blue – and oh _God_ , skeletons couldn’t blush, since when could skeletons blush? – and his eyes were trained on you. Beads of sweat broke out onto his forehead and your stomach clenched. You didn’t want to see that, it made you feel sick and horrible and want to continue on begging him for the forgiveness you weren’t sure he could even offer.

“…I, uh, hehe, don’t think ya wanna know the answer to that question.”

You hugged him tighter. He hugged you tighter. You pressed yourself against him as fully as you could; he was surprisingly warm, for a skeleton that lived in a climate as cold as Snowdin’s. Your tears were staining his shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind; not when the two of you had each other in a death grip. You muttered out weak apologies again, but he shushed you, his bony fingers combing through your hair in an attempt to quiet your sobs.

“Stop. Don’t apologize for…” He trailed off unsteadily and you wondered if the aching in your chest was your heart breaking. “Just. Tell me it’s you. It’s you, isn’t it?” He watched as you gave a tear-filled nod. He laughed, though it was hollow-sounding. “T-Then I think we’re gonna be okay.” You’d never heard him stutter before, and now you were sure the ache was your breaking heart. “We’re gonna be okay. We can hope that, uh, this time around…things are different…maybe…haha…maybe…it won’t…”

He hugged you closer. You mumbled into his sweater that you were sorry again, that you didn’t want to hurt him, to hurt anyone. He stroked your hair, he told you it was alright, as long as you were you, it was going to be okay – you didn’t understand. How could you not be you? Regardless, you mumbled you loved him and he told you that he was sorry. The two of you stayed like that, holding each other in the snow for a long time. Your knees ached, but you were warm, with Sans enveloping you like he was. The world around you could’ve been falling apart – and if you were honest with yourself, it probably was – but you would’ve kept on holding him.

“Haha…kid…” He fell silent again and you didn’t want to rush the moment. Not when you knew it could end before it had even begun. Sans knew it too, you knew he knew it and that he always had, but you didn’t know why you could suddenly remember. Even now, it was just a vague sense of déjà vu, of memories that maybe didn’t belong to you, but were there anyhow. You got the strange feeling that when it all fell apart again, you weren’t going to remember, but Sans was, just as he always had. The thought sapped you of your determination, but the skeleton’s arms around you made you feel even more determined to make sure he knew now: you didn’t want any of this to end like it always did.

His arms were around you so hard, he was almost crushing you, but you didn’t care. You might’ve heard sniffling too, but you would’ve had an equal chance at guessing if it had come from either him or you. Finally, you felt Sans’ shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. You don’t think you’ve ever heard someone sound so broken when he finally spoke to you again.

_“You can’t understand how this feels.”_

**Author's Note:**

> it probably gets super muddled at the end but i just wanted to write really sad sans/reader stuff in which the reader gains access to memories of past timelines and realizes everything they've done and everything they're capable of, SOOO


End file.
